


Memento Mori

by Talithax



Category: Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)
Genre: Character Death, Deathfic, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Mild Language, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-12
Updated: 2014-01-12
Packaged: 2018-01-08 11:29:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1132112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talithax/pseuds/Talithax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>... Death fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Memento Mori

**Author's Note:**

> ~ Narrated by Ethan. Self-beta'd.
> 
> ~ Death fic. Seriously. I can not stress this enough. If death fics aren't your thing, then hit the 'back' button now. If, however, you're either curious or can bring yourself to... trust me, read on.
> 
> (Who knows, perhaps I'm being cryptic for good reason? ;-) )

===========  
Memento Mori  
by TalithaX  
===========

 

I...

I know death.

To some, I am Death.

You could even say I've made a career out of being on intimate terms with it.

I've been close to it myself, have witnessed it on more occasions than I care to remember, and...

I've delivered it.

I'm not, and nor have I ever been, afraid of it. It's not only a constant factor, a constant... threat... in what I've chosen to do with my life, but it's also something I made my peace with a very long time ago.

Everybody dies. It's the most basic, the most... inevitable... fact of life, and if I happen to take my last breath during a mission, then...

So be it.

I'm not afraid of dying.

No.

If I'm afraid of anything it's...

… of being the one left behind.

I didn't always feels this way. I used to, again, if anything, feel... indifferent... to it. People, be they colleagues, targets, one night stands, or simply passers-by whose names I never even made the effort to learn, came and went in my life and... I was fine with it. It was just... life. By letting it ebb and flow around me without ever involving myself too closely with it, it... was just safe. Comforting, even. There was momentary grief, of course there was, if a colleague passed away, but there was also generally a spot of... annoyance... as well. Annoyance in that their death may have brought the mission into jeopardy, not to mention just a hint of... inconvenience... in that I'd probably have to be the one to shoulder the load of their responsibilities as well. 

Again, it was just... safe.

If I didn't allow myself to – be human – feel, I could close myself off to all diversions and focus solely on the goal of successfully completing the mission.

The goal. The all important, all consuming fucking goal of success.

Faster. Smarter. A better shot. A better fighter. More devious. More ruthless. Focussed. Driven. Never say no. Never give up.

Whatever it takes. Success at any cost.

Super human, or... barely human?

I wanted to put my old – farm boy – life behind me and be the very best.

For all the good is ultimately did me, it worked, too. I was the best.

Top of my field. Held in high esteem. The agent all the rookies looked up to and wanted to be.

I'd wanted it, and I'd achieved it.

It should have been enough. I should have embraced the cold and lonely prison I'd so carefully constructed for myself and simply... got on with things. After all, I had everything that I thought I needed. A successful career, a direct, personal line to the Secretary, the respect of my colleagues, all the anonymous and meaningless sex I could handle... Seriously, what more could I have possibly wanted? I had it all and didn't feel as though I was lacking anything.

Slowly, however, and I've never been able to pinpoint the exact moment when this started to happen, things began to change. Team mates, instead of simply being transient and changing from mission to mission, started to become more permanent fixtures in my life. Some even became... friends. I didn't want them to, and it would be a blatant lie to say that I welcomed their insidious presence in my life with open arms, but... They were just there, and there they stayed. The same faces, with their same personalities and eccentricities, same skills, and same pig-headed determination to not leave me well enough alone and to just ingratiate themselves into my life as though it was their God given right.

I hadn't been looking for it, but it happened anyway.

They came into my life and chipped away at my blinkered resolve until, eventually, I both adapted to them and took them for granted.

And...

Things, they were no longer quite so... safe.

When, given that it's the nature of our work, some of them died, I...

I felt it.

I felt the loss and I waved a futile fist at the unfairness of it all. Some, I even mourned.

But...

Life, it went on. 

It had to. The task we've chosen to burden ourselves with is one without end. For every agent that falls another rises through the ranks to take their place. For every law enforcement agency the world over there's five underground organisations growing and spreading by the second. As unpleasant as it is, it's just a fact of life.

For a while, I thought I had the best of both worlds. Not only was I still at the top of my game, but I also had colleagues around me that I considered friends and who I enjoyed spending time with.

A certain few, and, again, I'm not even entirely sure when exactly this happened, even became like family to me. I knew that I could both trust and rely on them, and that if I ever needed them that they'd be there for me.

They...

… Became my world.

That, and, one in particular, more of a reason for getting up in the morning than the once ever-present and all important goal of IMF driven success.

And now, now that my little world has been thrown into disarray, I'm afraid that I may have made a mistake, that, at the end of the day, perhaps I would have been better off in my self-made prison after all.

With the shock and grief of loss comes the fear.

The fear of being left...

Alone. Held captive by grief, if not bitter rage, and so full of regret that, quite literally, nothing else would matter.

I'm in danger of feeling like that now. I don't want to. Dear God, I really, really don't want to, but...

He...

He shouldn't have died.

Just...

Fuck it!

Fuck it to Goddamn mother fucking hell and back!

He shouldn't even have... been... there.

Friends never letting friends down though, he was there for me when I needed him to be, and...

Now he'll never be there again.

Ignoring my orders to stay back and not wanting to make the mistake of second guessing his gut feeling that things weren't as we'd planned on them being, he came out of nowhere, stepped up to the plate, and...

Paid the ultimate price.

There was nothing that I could have done.

Nothing.

Deep down I know that, and logic tells me that I'm not to blame myself for something that I had no control over, but... It doesn't help. It doesn't even come close to fucking helping.

If only...

I should have...

Maybe if I'd...

The stupid bastard should have listened to my orders and not taken things into his own hands...

Perhaps I missed something...

I must have missed something...

Oh God, I...

I'll never see him again. I'll never hear his voice or see him smile and, regardless of how much I might need him, he won't be there.

I...

I took him for granted and now he's in cold storage in the morgue.

It...

It's just not fair. In fact, it's far from fucking fair. Yes. People die. I know that. I also know that going over and over things in my head – while tears well in my eyes and I throw everything I still have left in me into not just dropping to the floor and howling at the unfairness of it all – isn't going to achieve a single fucking thing, but...

What else can I do?

I can't bring him back.

Nor can I focus on all of the good memories of our time together as, really, it's just – all too raw – far too soon.

We shouldn't even have been friends. Not really, and certainly not to the degree we were. Our personalities were too dissimilar and our specific fields of expertise too far apart. But... We were. Against the odds we were more than merely... friends... and knowing that I had him in my life was...

Special.

It just was.

He saved me, time and time again, in ways that I doubt he ever would have even imagined.

He was just... there.

Always. From the first time we met under unexpected circumstances, he was just always there for me.

And now he's not.

And...

I hate it.

I hate it so fucking much.

I hate...

… Knowing that there's nothing I can do to change anything.

… Feeling so Goddamn impotent. Can't fix it, can't think straight, can't cry... Can't do any fucking thing.

… Wasting time on wondering if, just maybe, I really was better off the way I used to be and that I simply made a mistake by opening myself up to others.

… The empty feeling that honestly feels as though it's wanting to swallow me whole.

… Closing my eyes and seeing, in high-definition perfection, the exact moment of his death over and over again in a never-ending loop that never fucking changes.

… Knowing that this is really it, that... He's really gone and that life will never, ever be the same again.

I know death.

I do.

And I know that what I'm feeling is normal. Regardless of either the circumstances or my own self-absorbed past, I've lost someone I was close to. Of course I should be feeling like – shit – an incoherent mess.

It, the logic that, fuck, I've turned out to be human after all, doesn't help though. Why would it? Life, albeit missing a once critical factor to it, will go on. It has to. It's, and, no, I'm not just saying this because I've suddenly decided to pander to tedious platitudes worthy of their own Hallmark card, what he would have wanted. 

Pick up the pieces and move on. Having, on too many occasions, been in the same boat himself, it's a... sentiment... he too would have subscribed to.

Life goes on.

For some.

I know that I need to be stronger, that, as team leader, I need to – harden the fuck up – be there for the others. Benji and Jane, having been both there and in no better position to intervene than I was, are working through their own sense of shock and loss and a little voice in my head whispers in my ear that I should be doing more for them than just... hiding myself away.

Only...

They didn't know him like I did. He was their friend, and they always seemed to get on well together, but...

He didn't, could never, mean to them what he meant to me.

So...

I hide behind the closed bedroom door and, for fear of losing it should I even try, keep my mouth shut.

I just want it...

… This hideous, breath-restricting and stomach clenching, feeling to go away.

If...

If things had been different.

If...

I can't.

I just... can't... play this – 'if, if, if fucking if' – game and emerge with my sanity still intact.

What happened, happened. I shouldn't dwell on it, shouldn't imagine different scenarios, and definitely shouldn't be feeling the way that I do.

I mean...

It's wrong, isn't it?

Perhaps even... unbecoming?

To take something as horrible as what actually happened and to then... imagine it in an even darker light, it...

It's not right.

But...

I can't help it.

Given the alternative, I...

… I'm glad that it went down the way that it did.

It makes me sick just thinking about it, but I am. There's no denying that it's the embodiment of selfishness, but I just am.

There's... bad, and then there's... worse.

Far, far worse.

Sensing movement on the bed behind me, I hug my arms loosely around my torso and continue to gaze aimlessly at the blackened world outside the window.

Do I say it?

Do I give voice to my deepest, darkest secret and risk the – possible look of disgust – consequences, or do I keep my mouth shut and just let it continue to eat away at me?

“Come on, Ethan... Please. Come back to bed.”

Lucky.

So fucking lucky.

It could have been...

It... should... have been...

Only...

“I know I didn't know him like you did,” the achingly familiar voice continues as strong arms slide around my waist and pull me back against the reassuring warmth of his body, “and that, despite the fact there's nothing I wouldn't give to be able to, there's nothing I can do to lessen your pain, but...”

“I...” I'm going to say it. I have to. “It's not that...”

Needing him to analyse the latest, out of the blue, influx of intel on a high-ranking project he'd been in charge of while Chief Analyst, Luther had stepped in to complete the team while Will remained in the hotel suite with his data, and...

Just like that. It could have been Will.

Luther was one of my oldest friends and one of the few people I've always felt completely comfortable around. He came to my aid probably more times than I'll ever remember and we've spent some truly amazing times together over the years. He was, and will forever be, like a brother to me.

But he wasn't Will, my... partner in every sense of the word.

Best friend. Voice of reason. Calming influence. Constant source of comfort, contentment, and, yes, even normalcy. Lover.

If it was Will's body wearing a toe-tag, I...

It...

It just doesn't bear thinking about.

Carpe Diem. Seize the day and, along with thanking your lucky stars, just... fight to your last breath and never ever let go.

I shouldn't, but I feel like the luckiest man alive.

Releasing a deep, shuddery breath, I turn to face Will and, wrapping my arms around him, pull him against me for an embrace that's almost bruising in its intensity. My move clearly coming as no surprise to him, Will immediately responds by hugging me tightly and pressing as much of his body as he can against mine.

“Above and beyond everything else,” I murmur hoarsely as, blinking back tears, I look at Will as, through blue eyes bright with their own tears, he gazes back at me, the emotion of the moment etched all over his face, “all I can think is how... how... glad... I am that it wasn't you...”

~ end ~


End file.
